Clare Short

Clare Short is a British politician, Member of the Parliament and former Secretary of State for International Development.

Found 26 thoughts of Clare Short

The Middle East is more angry than ever. I'm afraid that the sort of deceit on the route to war was linked to the lack of preparation for afterwards and the chaos and suffering that continuous - so it won't go away will it?

That feeds anger, and I mean when we went and at last thank heavens got towards peace in Northern Ireland we went for justice within Northern Ireland as well as using security well, as well as a political settlement, but surely that is the lesson.

And we know there has been horrendous loss of life and suffering and we know that there is anger. Anyone who came anywhere near the general election in constituencies with a substantial Muslim population knows that.

And if you remember the other part of the context is we were then all deceived about the French position and told the French had said they'd veto any second resolution - which wasn't true, we now know.

I mean enormous pressure was brought to bear - Valerie Amos, Lady Amos, went round Africa with people from our intelligence services trying to press them. I had to make sure that we didn't promise a misuse of aid in a way that would be illegal.

So my own suspicion is that the attorney has stopped this prosecution because part of her defence was to question legality and that would have brought his advice into the public domain again and there was something fishy about the way in which he said war was legal.

The problem is going to be finding the right words and implementing it in a way that is really dealing with people that are inciting and not preventing honest discussion of the underlying causes of this horrendous political situation the world is in now.

I mean that the time where we need International agreement more than ever on the environment and the rest, poverty we are breaking up our International Institutions and the rule of law and Tony Blair is part of it.